Thursday, 29 January 2015

In all fairness, I did sometimes feel
like an angel, the guardian version, whilst walking down Soi Cowboy
with any of my guy friends. The, krhm, bar girls rarely harass guys who have a girl with them... Well, usually whilst travelling it's the solo females who should take more
care, but in Bangkok it's most definitely the solo males.

BUT ANYHOWS let's move on to more parent-friendly material...

I spent a week in Bangkok last week,
making Thailand the second Asian country I have visited in my life. I
spent three nights in a hostel (Bodega Bangkok, absolutely brilliant,
highly recommended), two nights at my TEFL-friend Gemma's, then two
more at the hostel. Absolutely amazing time, making loads of friends at the hostel and having Gemma as a highly talented itinerary-creator and -executor, I feel I managed to do quite a lot. :)

So, what to do in Bangkok... (or what not to do)

1. VISIT TEMPLES. The old town is full
of funky ancient temples, most notably the epic Grand Palace. Golden
temples and ridiculously ornate lion and dragon creatures in the
blistering heat (can heat be blistering??).

Anyhoos, the Grand Palace complex was established in 1782(after King Rama I ascended to the throne) and it consists of not only the royal residence and throne halls, but also a number of government offices as well as the renowned Temple of the Emerald Buddha. It covers an area of 128,000 square metres and is surrounded by four walls, 1900 metres in length. (Love from the leaflet we picked up there.)

Constant reminders to respect Buddha

It was ridiculously impressive and definitely worth the 500 bahts we paid, even though we didn't explore the far corners of the governmental buildings.

The dress code at the Grand Palace is very strict, and I bought cool (“cool”) elephant trousers to wear there. The guys got lent long, stylish ("stylish") trousers by the palace.

Dress code

We witnessed one lady get shouted at by a very angry security dude when she decided to take off her cardigan once within the Palace area...

We also visited Wat Pho which has the
largest reclining Buddha. Unfortunately reclined Buddha is not an
outdoor dude so the pictures taken are not the best.

Chillin'

Special treatment for tourists

The highlight of Wat Pho was however the monk exam.

2. GO ON A MOTORBOAT FERRY. On our way
to the temples, after taking the sky train (metro in the sky, pretty
awesome) and the metro we took the most interesting ferry I have
been on in my life – it clearly had issues being a ferry since it
very clearly thought it was a speedboat.

Water spraying on both
sides as we bumped up and down the river – the closest I can
describe it to is a funfair ride. Chris was also constantly in awe
of the insane-looking engine puffing large gusts of black smoke.
Probably not the most environmentally friendly way to travel...

See the spray

Our driver

3. GO LIZARD-SPOTTING AND
ORCHESTRA-LISTENING-TO AT LUMPINI PARK. One of the biggest, if not
biggest parks in Bangkok. Home to lots of funky wildlife – turtles
(including turtlings!), catfish, big fish, exciting mini-flamingos
and MINI DINOSAURS. There were dozens of them.

Hello baby

A fat ex-dinosaur

And watering lorries

A few days later also were treated to a free
concert by the Bangkok Orchestra or something, loads of people,
pretty cool!

4. DO NOT GET SCAMMED. Bangkok is
famous for its gem scams – 'helpful' people telling you the site
you want to see is closed, and offering to help you somehow and you
end up in some dodgy gem shop spending money. Still not sure on the details but, well,
was well prepared for people coming up to tell us the sites were
closed.

But it was CONFUSING. Two different
guys told us Wat Pho was closed till 3pm (which it wasn't), but
neither proceeded to anything even remotely close to gemming, even
remotely close to getting anything to their advantage. They just
seemed like normal confusing guys.

We rapidly thought of an excuse to leave when one dude
took us into the shadows of the Grand Palace, introducing himself
as a volunteer. Still, nothing threatening or even vaguely
uncomfortable, so still quite confused what their aim was!!

5. VISIT CHINATOWN. It's cool. And Chinese. And busy.

Gate of Chinatown

Where we ate

6. VISIT CHATUCHAK
MARKET, apparently one of the biggest in the world. Gemma took me there to buy souvenirs and eat many foods. I bought a
stunning home-made dress (well, probably), a million bracelets and earrings, elephant-flip flops (I officially have elephant everything now) many
souvenirs and lots of food and drink. Mango rice and extremely
dodgy-looking frozen bananas topped with chocolate and nuts.

Mango and sticky rice with coconutty sauce!!

<3

I loved wandering about Chatuchak,
full of interesting shops and personalities, my favourites being
with a man who got tired of being a shop keeper and became a
dancing tambourinist, and the main coconut seller,
hitting them with a knife so the water flew, while shouting
aggressively “come and get coconuts, young, fresh and beautiful!”

Ok he looks too calm in this one... wait till you see the video.

7. VISIT KHAO SAN ROAD. Not too often though. The official
insane backpacker street, crazy during the day, completely insane at
night. A lot of fun, but wouldn't go there many more times...
Publishable highlights include street sellers selling bugs on sticks (my friends ate scorpions, and I posed with and bought a cockroach,
but I did not eat it, sorry I'm a squeamish eater) and dancing to
street DJs, so cool!!

Apparently spiders are gooey on the inside

So fake IDs are one of the many services Khoa San offers

During the day it is also full of stalls which we went round one day.

Also, many massage places (one thing I sadly didn't have time to do... :( next time!) and cool little finds on side streets, including the Gasoline Bar, which had a Lucky Hour – they flip a coin and if you correctly guess head or tails (though it was 'king' or 'temple' there) you got your cocktail for free!

Some of my favourite fellow-hostellers at the lovely Gasoline Bar :)

8. VISIT A SKY BAR. Coz sky bars are just awesome.

9. BE CONFUSED BY THE... confusing
systems which are probably quite efficient if you learn how to use
them. Like, well, Bangkok's taxi rank at the airport way surpassed
my intelligence or awareness of surroundings – after finally
finding the taxi rank (after spending ten minutes wandering around
the limousine rank, vaguely wondering if limousines were Bangkok's
version of taxis – then I realised there was another level under
mine with taxis all colours under the sun (and I am not
exaggerating, one of the most common colours was massively bright
PINK)) I walked into a taxi, sat down next to the driver, smiled
politely and showed him my address and the instructions to my
hostel, trying to rack my brains what he meant when he kept on just
saying “sleep number”. Then he produced a piece of paper with a
number on it – oh, SLIP number, and oh, there must be some
taxi-booking system here and I am currently attempting to steal
number 22's taxi... Woops, sorry taxi driver. I got out,
embarrassed, and he, very happily and good-humorously, pointed me
towards the Machines which Produce Slip Numbers.

Finally in MY taxi

Also, Connor and I found a Food court
at some far-out shopping centre, where we experienced more
Questionable Efficiency – long story short, after getting our
plates of food we wandered about with them in this large Food Court
looking for somewhere to pay, ended up having to go to and fro between
the payment card (they have some special E-card which you transport
to places) recharge place, the paying place and the original stall we
ordered our food at... Safe to say our food was cold by the time we
finished our miniature exploration and were allowed to sit down and
eat.

The said food ('Katsudon', we got it coz we had no idea what it was)

10. GO ON DAY TRIPS. Which include
elephant-feeding and being jumped on by crazy monkeys who have taken
over a ruined temple. And that is to be continued in future entries...

Wednesday, 14 January 2015

Well, three months ago I didn't even
dream of owning a motorbike. Two months ago I considered the idea
crazy. A month ago I thought the idea quite likely, but one thing I
definitely would not do for a while is the crazy trip nick-named the 'death ride' or something like that by one of my co-workers, Bien Hoa to
Saigon. Well, now I did it.

Well, mumsie, fear not because death
did not seem a threat. Actually, not once. The trucks and buses obediently did not drive over me, and I feel I can handle my motorbike pretty well now. Well, death threat was far surpassed by sense
of directionless threat. Yes, I know I have not been blessed with a
magnificent sense of direction. Yes, I chatted to a newbie teacher K
who managed the trip easily within his first week here and as a
motorbike owner. “Any problems?” I asked. “Nope!” But STILL I
cannot FATHOM how little sense the whole journey makes. Like, like,
like, I did my ultimate best NOT to get lost but, well, maybe you can
guess...

Bien Hoa – Saigon in a nutshell: at
non-rush hour expect it to take about an hour. It's about 30km, same
distance that I did in 20 minutes when I worked 30km away over the
summer. But, well, that's going at 120km/h in a car on a Finnish
motorway for most of the time, whilst here it's 40km/h on a
Vietnamese motorbike. The route was meant to be simple: Go straight,
just remember to turn left just before entering central Saigon.
Okiedokes.

I carefully looked up the route on my
maps (well, lacking a bit on that since I have no map of the area
between Saigon and Bien Hoa...) and google maps, and I drew a great
piece of art which is a map on my arm. Bought a new, 'good' helmet
('good' = looked decent and cost enough money to be hopefully
qualified as decent).

It started off well. I crossed the
bridge and made my way through Binh An, Dong Hoa, Linh Xuan and Linh
Tay, all names written on my arm. Awesome.

About 45 minutes in, the clear main
road suddenly divided into two. I wasn't worried, since even though
it was divided, both roads were equally big and just running parallel
to each other. I happened to choose the right-hand one. It started
gradually going further away from the left-hand one. Oh well, it
still seemed like a main road.

(Edit: Ok, was this the famous left people were talking about? But how was it this early? Maybe...)

Till it stopped being a main road.
Quite suddenly that big main road swerved to the right and became
quite a small, markety street, reminiscent of a centre of a town. Ok,
dilemma. Turn back (=attempt to turn back, not quite sure how it
would work here) and hope that the left-hand road looks better, or
continue and trust you'll end up somewhere?

Obviously option two. Especially
since I felt I wasn't the only confused one – there were two women on a bike in front of me who looked confused when the road
decided to minimize itself, and they even talked to one of the shop
keepers who seemed to wave them on, indicating they should go forward
and then turn left. Or something. Well, obviously they were asking
for directions to Ho Chi Minh City, and he gave them. I'll just
follow them.

At some point they gave up and turned
back. Luckily I am a strong, confident and independent driver who is
not easily rattled by things like roads potentially going in the wrong direction. Sigh.

The mafia selfie to break up this massive blob of pictureless text

Next I was definitely in the centre
of Thu Duc, a suburb/far away district of Ho Chi Minh City. I
had no knowledge and definitely no map of Thu Duc, so after a while I
pulled up on a pavement to stare stupidly at my map, and then ask a
nearby old man which way Saigon was. He helpfully told me (turn right
here, so apparently I hadn't been going too much in the wrong
direction...). Ok, cam on!

A bit more driving. (So much happened
I actually can't remember the order of stuff now lol.) At some point
I was crossing a big bridge, one that was familiar from my bus trips,
and I saw the Bitex Financial Building (the highest building of
Saigon), looking so promising and inviting and definitely telling me
I was on the right track. Ah, finally.

I had no idea where I was on the map,
though, after my detour of Thu Duc, so when I saw bus number 150 I
was very excited. I had taken bus number 150 once before, and I know
it goes from Bien Hoa to Saigon. If I just follow it... managed to
keep up quite well – it was generally faster than me, but it
frequently stopped so I managed to keep up.

Then at some point I lost bus number
150. But luckily another bus came – bus number 5, The Bus Number 5
dedicated fans will remember from a few months' back, the main Bien Hoa-Saigon bus! Hurrah! So,
blindly followed Bus Number 5 for probably twenty minutes at least,
contemplating if I could start doing this bus-following more often,
it was so handy. They go the best route, and I wouldn't have to
stress about routes and detours myself... And we were clearly going
through more central areas...

A picture of a Bus Number 5 <3

Then I lost Bus Number 5. About two
minutes later I approached a sign saying something on the lines of
“Welcome to Binh Duong Province”. Ah, thank you, wonderful.
Except that Binh Duong Province was a province which was most
definitely not towards Saigon, but closer to Bien Hoa.

Crossed another stupidly crazy
roundabout, and pulled over in front of some random café stall to
stare once again stupidly at my pointless map which obviously did not
even show where I was.

Luckily, as always, there were
friendly Vietnamese people around. These two men at the café came to
ask me if I needed help, and I managed to tell them I wanted to get
to Saigon (though made the whole thing a lot more complicated by
talking about Binh Duong and Thu Duc, wanting to 'prove' to them I
wasn't a complete imbecile, that I did know I was not in Saigon, but
obviously name-dropping other places just confused them more.) In the
end one of the dudes, a star, jumped on his bike and told me to
follow him.

He was on the phone most of the time
and sometimes turned round to talk/gesture to me (what about, I have
no idea), but I followed him for a good ten minutes until he stopped
underneath some bridge at yet another roundabout, pointed to a
main-looking road and said “Saigon, nine kilometre”. He refused
my 50,000 I offered him, and I got going down the road.

It was a big, 'official' looking
road, pretty modern for a Vietnamese road. And I was clearly driving
into the city. And, crossed yet another bridge. Saw the same Bitex
Financial Tower, a bit further away and in a completely different
direction to when I saw it previously half an hour ago. But still,
right direction. Again. Hurrah.

This time, when I got into a place
that looked vaguely central, I stopped and checked the map. And
hurrah hurrah hurrah, Dinh Bo Linh (or something like that) was a
road I found on my Saigon-map!!! I double- and triple-checked the
route – if I go down it I can get to Nguyen Binh Khiem street which'll
lead me onto the famous Nguyen Thi Minh Khai street, where I usually get the
bus from to go back to Bien Hoa. And NTMK is near the post office,
which was my first Saigon destination. Thank you God. :)

Wait, wait, not so fast. Because the
next... CHALLENGE was on its way. As if Saigon was not complicated
enough to navigate, the Saigonese are lucky to have the adventure of
One Way Street Navigation. My final forty-five minutes of the trip
was hopelessly circling the area where the post office was, always
just out of reach behind some one-way street.

A picture of cereal at my apartment to break up the pictureless text

It was a vicious cycle of checking
the map, memorising the route ('right, left, right'), stashing the
map away, driving off, going right, going left, realising you can't
go right at the next one, deciding you'll just go right at the
one after, realising you can't go right there either, nor at the
next, giving up, finding another pavement to park on, staring at the
map, memorising the route, AND SO ON.

At this stage I had a grand total of
three helpful people point me in the right direction, including a guy
who also jumped to my rescue when I experienced my First (half-)Fall
Off Bike – wasn't anything massive, I just misjudged my
bike's ability to curb-jump, or well, I misjudged the correct angle,
and ended up having my bike fall over on the curb. All good, except
obviously my pride, but in all fairness that had disappeared... well,
a long, long time ago. But this guy, a security guard at some café,
was the one who in the end pointed me in the right direction. I was
hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, when I rounded another hopeless corner
to suddenly realise I was in front of the post office – coming from
the opposite direction, granted, but HEY! :)

Well, a three-hour adventure, which
left me absolutely shattered for the whole day. I love Tài and I
love motorbiking, but it did get quite frustrating. And also,
drinking water was not on my agenda whilst navigating them Vietnamese
streets so was quite badly dehydrated as well.

HALF-TIME

Treat yourself to a Dunkin' Donuts caramelccino or an equivalent (this is what I had after the post office...)

I did love driving around Saigon
though. I can't believe I've actually done it. That crazy Ben Thanh
roundabout, the crazy masses of bikes waiting at lights that you see
in postcards... I was one of them! And biking is comparatively easy (and even
easier when you get some level of sense of direction). This trip to
Saigon included a lovely meal at a veggie restaurant with some new
friends, a hotel booking for when my friend Jess comes in February
(!!!), a lovely discovery of a book/board game café, and many catch
ups with awesome friends. :)

HALF-TIME OVER

The way back to Bien Hoa was slightly
though not much easier. I was pressed for time since I had a lesson
to teach. Once again, I made extra sure I had a very clear map on my
arm. Go straight, and remember to turn right onto Pham Van Dong
street, and from then on it's just following the main road till Bien
Hoa. Easy peasy.

Happily made it onto Pham Van Dong
street and complimented myself on my newly acquired skill of Sense of
Direction. As always, there were roadworks ahead making life a bit
more confusing. We got to this dusty roadworky roundabout, and it
looked as if the only way was right. There was a roadsign with an
arrow and some Vietnamese text, and it seemed all the other vehicles
were going there, so I followed. Just a detour I guess.

Just a detour. (Edit: you retard!!!!)

It was that retarded right turn...

After a while got to one of them
roundabouts and I saw the street name. Xa Lo Ha Noi.

!&”?%&!”¤
Xa Lo Ha Noi, I was pretty sure the name was familiar because I
checked that is the name of the street I do NOT want to be near, ie.
very much in the wrong direction.

So, frustrated stopping in front of
café stall to stare stupidly at a map again. And again, friendly
Vietnamese people coming to help. Go down Xa Lo Ha Noi about five
kilometres, then turn left at the roundabout and straight straight
straight (or “traigh traigh traigh” as the Vietnamese would say).
Luckily I took my time leaving coz I had issues putting on my helmet
and mask, because just as I was leaving the man came back to me and
said actually, no turning left, just traigh traigh traigh. Ok...

His directions were surprisingly
nice. I found myself on a high-way with _ actual _ sign posts _ to _
Bien _ Hoa. I thanked the heavens and enjoyed the nice sunny ride.

Entering Bien Hoa, hurrah... I was
aware I was probably coming in a different route, so I kept my eyes
peeled for familiar turnings. We were going through the industrial
area I'd never been through before. Finally there was one sign at a
crossroads, turn left for “Bien Hoa 1”, turn right for “Bien
Hoa 2” or continue going traigh for “Ha Noi 16 869 km” (or
something like that). Erm. Had my blink on for Bien Hoa 1 but then
the light for Ha Noi 16 869 km changed first and I decided I didn't
want to risk being run over my the buses crowding on every side of
me, and advanced towards Ha Noi.

Realising I had the definite risk of
driving past Bien Hoa altogether, I pulled over, for a change, to
stare at my map. I bought an iced tea off a lady at some official
looking thingy which turned out to be a very unofficial bus station.
I asked her about Bien Hoa City and Vo Thi Sau (one of the central
streets) and she vaguely gestured straight, and then to the right or
to the left. I didn't figure out which one she meant, so felt a bit
distressed once again.

At the ice tea place

I was just deciding on which friend
to call in distress when I realised I found this bus station, Ben Xe
Dong Nai, on my map of Bien Hoa. According to the map, I should go
straight for a while then turn to the left at the next big street.
OK.

Just after leaving the bus station I
entered an area with a sign post in both Vietnamese and English:
'accident prone area'. Ok cheers, Vietnam ye country of No Road
Signs, ye country of No Traffic Logic, ye country of No English, and
you have a ROAD SIGN, in ENGLISSHHH, about, er, the possibility of
accidents!?!?!? Maybe this is a sign I should be turning
back............

So, I was wanting to turn left. I was
on the outside lane of a road with three lanes to my left. Each lane
was jam-packed with lorries. Lorries and lorries and trucks and
trucks, all dusty and polluted and smelly and, well, potentially
crushing you in an instant. I wasn't going to go try my luck amongst
them truckies, looking for a left turn.

As we advanced, the motorbikes got
basically pushed off the road. Where there was pavement, we drove on
pavement. Then it became this bumpy rocky dust road. It was reaching
such points of surreal ridiculousness that I had to stop and, krhm,
take a picture. Or two. I had my proper disguise of dark sunglasses,
helmet and face mask on so no one could pinpoint me as the tourist
culprit, so that was slightly reassuring.

Then back into the traffic.

There were traffic lights ahead. Did
this mean the left turn was coming up? I saw working lights pointing
right and straight, but not left. But there were still vehicles
turning left. One motorbike had stopped on the side of the road to
ask something from an official road-working-looking guy at the side
of the road, so I followed, and asked “Vo Thi Sau” and pointed to
the left. He nodded. Hurray.

Navigation through traffic. Realised
I was too keen and had gone against a red light as well as being on
the complete wrong side of the road, with traffic coming towards me
from all sides. Oh well, had it been England or Finland I would've
been mortified of embarrassment but, hey, this is Vietnam, where
anyone can do anything, so I cheekily made my way against the traffic
to get to my own side.

And from there on, relatively
plain-sailing. I was very close to crying of relief when I finally
swerved into my dear old parking area in my apartment block, and
flopping onto my lovely pink bed with a lovely chocolate milk for a
lovely 15-minute nap before a lovely refreshing shower before five
hours of hectic lesson planning and teaching.

Purple: The Ideal Route (and route I took on my way out of BH). Green: My Route

5h of driving to and from Saigon plus probably a total of about an hour driving in Saigon = about one tank of petrol. 40,000 dongs. That's 1½ euros, or just over one pound. Even in comparison to my normal way of getting to Saigon: 1 bus (15,000 dongs) and two xeoms (totalling usually at least 60,000 dongs) each way, not even counting all the xeoms/cabs within the city = 150,000 dongs (about five quid). You do the maths. Motorbiking is pretty cheap.

Final arrival picture

And that was my motorbike trip to
Saigon and back. Thank you for reading.

Emzy&Tài

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PS. Just spent a while now looking at
googlemaps. I know I'm stupid. I know where I went wrong on the way
back – I'm sure there was a way to go straight at that dusty
roundabout. I can see clearly which road I took to the right which
was WRONGGGGGGGG

Purple: The route I planned to take. Green: The route I took back to BH.

PPS. And my only theory for the
proper mystery on the way to Saigon is that maybe the Bus Number 5
was going the wrong direction. It had to have been. But still...

PPPS. I feel I know a bit more how I
went wrong after that study of googlemaps. And writing and reading and editing this... Maybe I'll attempt it
again soon. ;)